Cleanzine: your weekly cleaning and hygiene industry newsletter 18th April 2024 Issue no. 1110

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Bio security: Cleaning ATM machines and internal surfaces

A survey recently carried out to determine contaminations found on ATM machines and money revealed 19 separate bacteria strains on ATM machines. These included; Bacillus, Micrococcus, Staphylococcus, Salmonella, Aeromonas, Pseudomonas, Enterobacter, Escherichia, Klebsiella, Lactobacillus, Streptococcus, Alcaligenes and E. coli.

There were also traces of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and Fentanyl. The survey concluded that ATM machines carried as many contaminations as toilet seats in public washrooms.

Money was found to have larger amounts of contaminates, with the £20 note being top of the list. This is not surprising considering the £20 note is still a paper currency, whilst the £5 & £10 notes are now made of polymer.

Cleaning markets have been crying out for new chemical technology for many years. Most disinfectants are formulated to kill a specific set of organisms affecting a particular industry and to pass standardised lab protocols for the EPA, DEFRA, EU, etc. In other words, the same chemical technology is used, a new label is applied, and you end up with the same or similar results.

Bank tellers are handling money on a regular basis. They are then operating computer keyboards, iPads, ATM machines and touching many internal surfaces within a bank.

Hygiene standards differ from person to person. A person may use the bathroom and thoroughly clean their hands afterwards, drying them with warm air hand dryers; however, the surfaces they then touch such as door handles carry contaminates left by a person who may not have cleaned their hands thoroughly. These contaminates are then passed to other surfaces.

Bacterial and viral contaminates found on everyday surfaces build resilience to standard cleaning chemicals, which is making them harder to eliminate. They will hide themselves in areas that are not regularly cleaned such as HVAC systems, and those hard to get at areas which are often neglected during cleaning.

Air conditioning & heating units are turned on and the contaminations become airborne, are breathed in and settle on surfaces that are touched regularly, creating cross-contamination scenarios.

When applied to a surface, cleaning chemicals require wet contact time before the chemistry starts to work; usually this time period is a minimum of five - 10 minutes. Unfortunately, they are often sprayed and wiped simultaneously, and the pleasant fragrance leads us to believe the surface is clean.

E-Shield starts to work after 10 seconds' wet contact time and there is no need to wipe from any surface. Further, while many chemicals need repeat application and are not foodsafe and have to be removed from food contact surfaces, with E. Shield there is no need to remove from any surface; the chemistry will continue to work for 28 days unless rinsed or wiped with water. This has massive cost saving implications for the user, reducing labour costs and time associated with cleaning.

Developed for use in all environments from agriculture and food processing through to standard cleaning of the home and business, E - Shield was designed to eliminate/inactivate DNA and RNA which eliminates any organism's regrowth and ability to build resistance.
It delivers a chemical that is totally biodegradable, non-carcinogenic and safe to use with no specialised training required; a chemical that delivers outstanding results (Log Kill 6 and above); i.e. Rolls Royce results at a Ford Fiesta price.

E - Shield systems were designed to be used through the Victory electrostatic application machinery, positively charging the chemical which makes the chemical adhere to any surface, bearing in mind that normal cleaning agents are often negatively charged as are the surfaces and furniture found in homes and business. Like playing with magnets if you put a negative to a negative, they will push apart... Put a positive to a negative and they will stick together, hence the reason normal cleaning agents run down a vertical surface or drip from an overhead horizontal surface.

E-Shield chemicals, being positively charged, will stick to whatever they are applied to. They are efficacious on a wide range of substrates, temperature, humidity and soil load conditions, where alternative chemistries simply fail or have limited effect. Thus they can eliminate bacteria gram plus and gram negative enveloped and non-enveloped viruses, vegetative and non-vegetative spores. Bio films, which can harbour contaminations, are also eliminated. When E-Shield is applied through the company's electrostatic sprayers, the user can obtain over 150sq.m per litre coverage, which has massive cost saving implications.

Using E - Shield will eliminate the need to purchase multiple chemicals and as the molecular in the chemistry is constantly changing, it inhibits bacterial and viral contaminates' ability to build resilience. By using E- Shield, the customer will use 65% less cleaning chemical or will disinfect/clean 65% more surface area.

Bodily fluid emissions are a regular occurrence especially within healthcare, but can also happen on planes, ships, banks, buses. ambulances, police cars and stations, taxis, the office and at home. Bodily fluids need to be neutralised as soon as possible as they can harbour pathogens and viruses that are highly contagious such as Norovirus.

E-Shield will also neutralise body fluids, hunting out and destroying bacterial and viral contaminates. In a scenario where a person may vomit or expel bodily fluid, you simply spray on E-Shield to neutralise, then sprinkle on the decontamination powder which will turn the spill to a manageable powder that can be vacuumed or swept, significantly reducing the possibility of a viral contamination.

Available in 150ml RTU's (Ready to use) aerosol spray dispensers that fit in your pocket, E-Shield allows the user to apply a high-level broad-spectrum sporicidal disinfectant directly to the spill, neutralising the contamination within seconds.

T: +44 (0) 1424 259 089
www.ecostatics.com

17th October 2019